The Origins of Class.

[trubkin pipeface]

With the advent of agriculture and thus, for the first time in human history, surpluses in production, it became possible for a group of people to leverage their social power to live off of this surplus without contributing their labor. I'm interested in the origin of this social power. Where did it come from? How did it express itself previous to agriculture?

If anyone has any links to articles/lectures/other resources on this topic, I would be interested...

[Brosip Tito]

With the advent of agriculture and thus, for the first time in human history, surpluses in production, it became possible for a group of people to leverage their social power to live off of this surplus without contributing their labor. I'm interested in the origin of this social power. Where did it come from? How did it express itself previous to agriculture?

If anyone has any links to articles/lectures/other resources on this topic, I would be interested...
Are you asking about the transition from primitive communism to feudalism? If so, I think (I may be wrong here) that it's discussed in Capital Vol. 1. Apart from that, I can't say much about it.

[Blake's Baby]

There wasn't a transition from Primitive Communism to Feudalism. Feudalism emerged from the ruin of Antique Slavery in the first millenium AD. Primitive Communism had disappeared in most of Europe up to 5 thousand years earlier than this.

Trubkin, I'm not sure that 'surpluses' were the thing. In primitive communism everyone 'owned' the means of production. Anyone could catch deer, pick fruit, gather nuts, whatever - it was all wild stuff, you just harvested it. And according to some estimates, the living could be very good.

Once agricultural production came along, exclusivity crept in. This growing stuff belongs to these people, and you're not one of these people, so go away before these armed men kill you with their stone axes... that's surely the beginning of the class system, when different groups have differential access to the products of society?

[Clarksist]

that it's discussed in Capital Vol. 1

I'm nowhere near done, but I think I've gone over a great amount of the material which discusses it in Capital I and it came off as incredibly theoretical and nothing very historically rigorous. Perhaps I am wrong, he may go over it again in greater historical detail, but historical detail (apart from graphic descriptions of the horrors of working days in England) does not seem to be Marx's strength.

I would assume there is some great Marxist and non-Marxist scholarship on that transition now. Seems like it would be a fascinating area of study for any social historian. We should get a list of books for something like that.

[Hit The North]

I'm nowhere near done, but I think I've gone over a great amount of the material which discusses it in Capital I and it came off as incredibly theoretical and nothing very historically rigorous. Perhaps I am wrong, he may go over it again in greater historical detail, but historical detail (apart from graphic descriptions of the horrors of working days in England) does not seem to be Marx's strength.

I would assume there is some great Marxist and non-Marxist scholarship on that transition now. Seems like it would be a fascinating area of study for any social historian. We should get a list of books for something like that.
Comrade, you have obviously missed part eight of Capital, So-called Primitive Accumulation, which traces the historical genesis of modern capitalism in some detail.

For the OP: you answer your own question. Social class arises as a function of the agricultural revolution, made possible by the production of a surplus and the emergence of a social division of labour.

[Stalin Ate My Homework]

Check out the family section in Engels' origins of the family private property and the state. Engel's points to monogamous marriage as the primary cause of the first division of labour between man and woman and hence the first class antagonisms.:(

[cb9's_unity]

Yah, I'm also only started with capital and can't wait to see what Marx has to say about the issue.

However, it may be a mistake to simply assume that class began as a vertical distinction instead of a horizonal one. Different methods of production may have been as significant a cause for division as control over those methods.

[ckaihatsu]

Once agricultural production came along, exclusivity crept in. This growing stuff belongs to these people, and you're not one of these people, so go away before these armed men kill you with their stone axes... that's surely the beginning of the class system, when different groups have differential access to the products of society?





Check out the family section in Engels' origins of the family private property and the state. Engel's points to monogamous marriage as the primary cause of the first division of labour between man and woman and hence the first class antagonisms.:(


Anyone here know which came first, though? It seems like a chicken-or-the-egg situation of a simultaneous, complementary-reinforcing development. In other words domestication would apply both to crops / livestock, and to people.

[ckaihatsu]

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Classes began to arise out of certain of these changes in making a livelihood. Methods of production were open to the group that could enable it to produce and store a surplus over and above what was needed to subsist. But the new methods required some people to be freed from the immediate burden of working in the fields to coordinate the activities of the group, and to ensure that some of the surplus was not immediately consumed but set aside for the future in storehouses.

The conditions of production were still precarious. A drought, a virulent storm or a plague of locusts could destroy crops and turn the surplus into a deficit, threatening general starvation and driving people to want to consume the stores set aside for future production. In such circumstances, those freed from manual labour to supervise production could find the only way to achieve this task was to bully everyone else—to keep them working when tired and hungry and to force them to put aside food stocks even when starving. The ‘leaders’ could begin to turn into ‘rulers’, into people who came to see their control over resources as in the interests of society as a whole. They would come to defend that control even when it meant making others suffer; they would come to see social advance as dependent on themselves remaining fit, well and protected from the famines and impoverishment that periodically afflicted the population as a whole. In short, they would move from acting in a certain way in the interests of the wider society to acting as if their own sectional interests were invariably those of society as a whole. Or, to put it another way, for the first time social development encouraged the development of the motive to exploit and oppress others.

Class divisions were the other side of the coin of the introduction of production methods which created a surplus. The first farming communities had established themselves without class divisions in localities with exceptionally fertile soil. But as they expanded, survival came to depend on coping with much more difficult conditions—and that required a reorganisation of social relations.65

Groups with high prestige in preceding non-class societies would set about organising the labour needed to expand agricultural production by building irrigation works or clearing vast areas of new land. They would come to see their own control of the surplus—and the use of some of it to protect themselves against natural vicissitudes—as in everyone’s interest. So would the first groups to use large scale trade to increase the overall variety of goods available for the consumption of society and those groups most proficient at wresting surpluses from other societies through war.

Natural catastrophes, exhaustion of the land and wars could create conditions of acute crisis in a non-class agricultural society, making it difficult for the old order to continue. This would encourage dependence on new productive techniques. But these could only be widely adopted if some wealthy households or lineages broke completely with their old obligations.

Harman, _People's History of the World_, Chapter 3, 'The first class divisions', pp. 24-25

[Tim Cornelis]

Primitive communism developed into slave societies. Who were the first slaves? Where did they come from?

Primitive communism was negated by the neolithic revolution. The increase in the agricultural abilities of society lead to a new mode of production: that is slavery.

As Engels explained: “the increase of production in all branches—cattle-raising, agriculture, domestic handicrafts—gave human labour-power the capacity to produce a larger product than was necessary for its maintenance. At the same time it increased the daily amount of work to be done by each member of the gens, household community or single family. It was now desirable to bring in new labour forces. War provided them; prisoners of war were turned into slaves.”

Friedrich Engels, Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State, chapter: IX. Barbarism and Civilization

[Revolution starts with U]

There wasn't a transition from Primitive Communism to Feudalism. Feudalism emerged from the ruin of Antique Slavery in the first millenium AD. Primitive Communism had disappeared in most of Europe up to 5 thousand years earlier than this.

Trubkin, I'm not sure that 'surpluses' were the thing. In primitive communism everyone 'owned' the means of production. Anyone could catch deer, pick fruit, gather nuts, whatever - it was all wild stuff, you just harvested it. And according to some estimates, the living could be very good.

Once agricultural production came along, exclusivity crept in. This growing stuff belongs to these people, and you're not one of these people, so go away before these armed men kill you with their stone axes... that's surely the beginning of the class system, when different groups have differential access to the products of society?

This and


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This.

We must remember that some of this exclusivity existed in PC. There were still "our ancestral hunting grounds" and other BS like that.
What happened tho was that agriculture created professionals; professional politicians, warriors, etc. Prior to this everyone was a warrior, hunter, scholar (as far as it goes in PC), sorcerer, leader (at least of himself), etc.
Now that you have a group of professionals, you have a group who's job it is to protect their privelage. Ergo, class division.


Primitive communism developed into slave societies. Who were the first slaves? Where did they come from?

Primitive communism was negated by the neolithic revolution. The increase in the agricultural abilities of society lead to a new mode of production: that is slavery.

As Engels explained: “the increase of production in all branches—cattle-raising, agriculture, domestic handicrafts—gave human labour-power the capacity to produce a larger product than was necessary for its maintenance. At the same time it increased the daily amount of work to be done by each member of the gens, household community or single family. It was now desirable to bring in new labour forces. War provided them; prisoners of war were turned into slaves.”

Friedrich Engels, Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State, chapter: IX. Barbarism and Civilization

Don't forget that a lot of slaves in these societies were debt slaves too.

[ColonelCossack]

Basically, during primitive society- also known as primitive communism- the "economy" worked on a tribal basis, with people collecting and gathering what the tribe needed (food and whatnot) and it was shared among the tribe- otherwise the tribe would die. However, with the advent of farming, there was a surplus of resources- and this extra wealth was used to support a new ruling class. Before that there was only just enough to go around.

Unless I was beaten to it...

Edit: Oh shit I was beaten to it by the OP...

I would say they origins of their social power was either military dominance, i.e. whoever was the best warrior, or religious leadership, i.e. the priests etc said that the gods chose them to lead them. i dunno.

[MotherCossack]

you know what... i am seriously impressed with some of these informed and very scholarly exchanges that i read on rev-left.
i wish i had the capacity to learn and retain so much historical and theoretical data. probably i am just lazy.... and i get distracted ....
i do have some reservations though and i expect to be heavily criticised but will go ahead anyhow.
having all agreed that these exchanges are valid and of interest... i wonder how relevant they will be in any future political upheaval... which i certainly hope most of us would support(assuming, of course, things were moving in the left direction).
by that i mean, marx died a while ago, and his world, well the fundamentals might remain the same, but a lot has changed in the detail...
and anyway... so many people have been fed anti-communism since birth, in a world saturated with capitalist dogma , been spoonfed cleverly invented lies and fabrications for..... well, forever... really....
doesn't anyone else worry that we are not ever going to get anywhere unless we find something more or something different .
i mean who can see the proletariat actually going for it?...
it is not gonna happen is it? not unless one of us comes up with a hell of a better argument....[we might need half a dozen miraculous mega-events aswell)

maybe i am alone... i have no idea... it [ all this] just seems a bit ineffectual and not quite fit for purpose, to me, now and then....
well.. hey... maybe no-one cares that much anyway.... change isn't a rest, after all.....